Experience with lifetime limits for EBR-II core components

The Experimental Breeder Reactor No. 2 (EBR-II) is operated for the US Department of Energy by Argonne National Laboratory and is located on the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory where most types of American reactor were originally tested. EBR-II is a complete electricity-producing power plant now in its twenty-fourth year of successful operation. During this long history the reactor has had several concurrent missions, such as demonstration of a closed Liquid-Metal Reactor (LMR) fuel cycle (1964-69); as a steady-state irradiation facility for fuels and materials (1970 onwards); for investigating effects of operational transients on fuel elements (from 1981); for research into the inherent safety aspects of metal-fueled LMR's (from 1983); and, most recently, for demonstration of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) concept using U-Pu-Zr fuels. This paper describes experience gained at EBR-II in defining lifetime limits for LMR core components, particularly fuel elements.